Procedural and declarative knowledge of word recognition and letter decoding in reading an artificial script.

In a previous study [Cogn. Brain Res. 16 (2003) 325], we found that letter knowledge did not evolve from implicit training on whole-word recognition in an artificial Morse-like script, although the participants were adults, experienced in alphabetical reading. Here we show minimal conditions in which letter knowledge may evolve in some individuals from training on whole-word recognition. Participants received multi-session training in reading nonsense words, written in an artificial script, in which each phoneme was represented by two discrete symbols. Three training conditions were compared: alphabetical whole words with letter decoding instruction (Explicit), alphabetical whole words (Implicit), and non-alphabetical whole words (Arbitrary). Subjects were assigned to training either on the explicit and arbitrary or on the implicit and arbitrary conditions. Our results show that: (a) Letter-decoding knowledge evolved implicitly from training on alphabetical whole-word recognition, in some individuals. However, (b) a clear double dissociation was found between effectively applied implicit letter knowledge and declarative letter knowledge. (c) There was no advantage of the implicitly derived over the explicitly instructed letter knowledge. (d) Long-term retention was more effective in the explicit compared to the arbitrary condition. (e) Word-specific recognition contributed significantly to performance in all three training conditions, i.e. even under conditions that presumably afford advantage for word segmentation. Altogether, our results suggest that both declarative and procedural knowledge contributed to letter decoding as well as to word-specific recognition performance. Moreover, a greater dependency on declarative knowledge may not be an inherent characteristic of word-specific recognition, but rather that both letter decoding and word-recognition routines can become proceduralized given sufficient practice.

[1]  Carol H. Bishop.  Transfer effects of word and letter training in reading , 1964 .

[2]  Jack M. Fletcher,et al.  The Role of Instruction in Learning To Read: Preventing Reading Failure in At-Risk Children. , 1998 .

[3]  D. Cottrell,et al.  Learning correspondences between letters and phonemes without explicit instruction , 1999, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[4]  Philip H. K. Seymour,et al.  Beginning reading without phonology , 1986 .

[5]  M. Nissen,et al.  Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures , 1987, Cognitive Psychology.

[6]  L R Squire,et al.  The information acquired during artificial grammar learning. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[7]  A Karni,et al.  Alphabetical knowledge from whole words training: effects of explicit instruction and implicit experience on learning script segmentation. , 2003, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[8]  S. Greenberg.  Are letter codes always activated? , 1988, Perception & psychophysics.

[9]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Phonology, reading acquisition, and dyslexia: insights from connectionist models. , 1999 .

[10]  Hideaki Fujita,et al.  Left supramarginal/angular gyri activation during reading of syllabograms in the Japanese language , 1991, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[11]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Implicit learning: news from the front , 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[12]  David J. Francis,et al.  How Letter-Sound Instruction Mediates Progress in First-Grade Reading and Spelling , 1991 .

[13]  A. Lecours,et al.  The Role of Sublexical Graphemic Processing in Reading , 2000, Brain and Language.

[14]  Ruth Fielding-Barnsley,et al.  Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge in the child's acquisition of the alphabetic principle. , 1989 .

[15]  C. Piotrowski.  A Review of the Clinical and Research Use of the Bender-Gestalt Test , 1995, Perceptual and motor skills.

[16]  Mark S. Seidenberg,et al.  Phonology, reading acquisition, and dyslexia: insights from connectionist models. , 1999, Psychological review.

[17]  M W Kirkhart.  The Nature of Declarative and Nondeclarative Knowledge for Implicit and Explicit Learning , 2001, The Journal of general psychology.

[18]  P. Maquet,et al.  Neural correlates of perceptual learning: A functional MRI study of visual texture discrimination , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[19]  Thompson,et al.  Sublexical Orthographic-Phonological Relations Early in the Acquisition of Reading: The Knowledge Sources Account , 1996, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[20]  A. Karni.  The acquisition of perceptual and motor skills: a memory system in the adult human cortex. , 1996, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[21]  G. Logan.  Toward an instance theory of automatization. , 1988 .

[22]  John R. Anderson.  Acquisition of cognitive skill. , 1982 .

[23]  T Johnstone,et al.  Abstraction Processes in Artificial Grammar Learning , 1997, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[24]  Connie Juel,et al.  The development and use of mediated word identification , 1983 .

[25]  B. Horwitz,et al.  Phonological and orthographic components of word recognition. A PET-rCBF study. , 1997, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[26]  W. E. Jeffrey,et al.  EFFECT OF METHOD OF READING TRAINING ON INITIAL LEARNING AND TRANSFER. , 1967 .

[27]  Ruth Fielding-Barnsley,et al.  Effects of preschool phoneme identity training after six years: Outcome level distinguished from rate of response. , 2000 .

[28]  D R Shanks,et al.  Neuronal correlates of familiarity-driven decisions in artificial grammar learning , 2003, Neuroreport.

[29]  Scott T. Grafton,et al.  Attention and stimulus characteristics determine the locus of motor-sequence encoding. A PET study. , 1997, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[30]  G. Underwood.  Strategies of information processing , 1980 .

[31]  Richard I. Ivry,et al.  Attention and structure in sequence learning. , 1990 .

[32]  C. Shea,et al.  Specificity and variability of practice. , 1990, Research quarterly for exercise and sport.

[33]  Ron Sun,et al.  From implicit skills to explicit knowledge: a bottom-up model of skill learning , 2001, Cogn. Sci..

[34]  J. Shea,et al.  Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill. , 1979 .

[35]  Pierre Perruchet,et al.  Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or explicit fragmentary knowledge? Journal of , 1990 .

[36]  G. Stone,et al.  Word identification in reading and the promise of subsymbolic psycholinguistics. , 1990, Psychological review.

[37]  D. Sugden,et al.  Practice Variability and Transfer of a Racket Skill , 1995, Perceptual and motor skills.

[38]  S. Petersen,et al.  Neuroimaging studies of word reading. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[39]  M. Carroll,et al.  Learning artificial orthographies: Further evidence of a nonanalytic acquisition procedure , 1989, Memory & cognition.

[40]  R. Dekeyser,et al.  BEYOND EXPLICIT RULE LEARNING , 1997, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[41]  Y. S. Lee,et al.  Transfer and retention of implicit and explicit learning. , 1996, British journal of psychology.

[42]  Alice F. Healy,et al.  Retention and transfer of morse code reception skill by novices: part-whole training. , 2001 .

[43]  M W Lovett,et al.  Training and transfer-of-learning effects in disabled and normal readers: evidence of specific deficits. , 1997, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[44]  P. Reitsma,et al.  The transient role of explicit phonological recoding for reading acquisition , 2000 .

[45]  A. Karni,et al.  Learning perceptual skills: behavioral probes into adult cortical plasticity , 1997, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[46]  Timothy C. Papadopoulos,et al.  Phonological and cognitive correlates of word-reading acquisition under two different instructional approaches in Greek , 2001 .

[47]  P. H. Seymour,et al.  Developmental dyslexia: a cognitive experimental analysis of phonological, morphemic, and visual impairments , 1984 .

[48]  P. Gordon,et al.  Effect of Different Quantities of Variable Practice on Acquisition, Retention, and Transfer of An Applied Motor Skill , 1998, Perceptual and motor skills.

[49]  Brian MacWhinney,et al.  IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT PROCESSES , 1997, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[50]  I. Kanazawa,et al.  Different cortical activity in reading of Kanji words, Kana words and Kana nonwords. , 2000, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[51]  S. Pinker,et al.  A Neural Dissociation within Language: Evidence that the Mental Dictionary Is Part of Declarative Memory, and that Grammatical Rules Are Processed by the Procedural System , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[52]  J J Bloomberg,et al.  Variable practice with lenses improves visuo-motor plasticity. , 2001, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[53]  M. Ullman.  A neurocognitive perspective on language: The declarative/procedural model , 2001, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[54]  Dianne C. Berry,et al.  Implicit memory: intention and awareness revisited , 2001, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[55]  N. Chater,et al.  Transfer in artificial grammar learning : A reevaluation , 1996 .

[56]  Peter Ford Dominey,et al.  Dissociable Processes for Learning the Surface Structure and Abstract Structure of Sensorimotor Sequences , 1998, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[57]  John Duncan.  Consistent and varied training in the theory of automatic and controlled information processing , 1986, Cognition.

[58]  Paul A. Kolers,et al.  Processing of visible language , 1979 .

[59]  M. Coltheart,et al.  Serial processing in reading aloud: Evidence for dual-route models of reading. , 1994 .

[60]  Barbara R. Foorman,et al.  Research on "The Great Debate": Code-oriented versus whole-language approaches to reading instructio , 1995 .

[61]  R. Schmidt.  The role of consciousness in second language learning , 1990 .

[62]  Lee Brooks,et al.  A Comparison of Explicit and Implicit Knowledge of an Alphabet , 1979 .

[63]  P. Matthews,et al.  Testing for Dual Brain Processing Routes in Reading: A Direct Contrast of Chinese Character and Pinyin Reading Using fMRI , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[64]  S. Krashen.  Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning , 1988 .

[65]  M Coltheart,et al.  DRC: a dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. , 2001, Psychological review.

[66]  L. Ehri,et al.  Movement into Reading: Is the First Stage of Printed Word Learning Visual or Phonetic?. , 1985 .

[67]  S. Segalowitz,et al.  Assessing the development of automaticity in second language word recognition , 1998, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[68]  A. Reber.  Implicit learning and tacit knowledge , 1993 .

[69]  Sachiko Koyama,et al.  Reading of Japanese Kanji (morphograms) and Kana (syllabograms): a magnetoencephalographic study , 1998, Neuropsychologia.

[70]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Fingerpoint-Reading of Memorized Text: What Enables Beginners to Process the Print?. , 1991 .

[71]  Yiping Chen,et al.  Effects of Word Form on Brain Processing of Written Chinese , 2002, NeuroImage.

[72]  Cortical activation in reading assessed by region of interest-based analysis and statistical parametric mapping. , 2001, Brain research. Brain research protocols.

[73]  Paul J. Reber,et al.  Dissociating Explicit and Implicit Category Knowledge with fMRI , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[74]  L. Squire,et al.  Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[75]  D. Share.  Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition , 1995, Cognition.

[76]  C. Perfetti.  The Representation Problem in Reading Acquisition , 1992 .

[77]  P. Robinson.  GENERALIZABILITY AND AUTOMATICITY OF SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING UNDER IMPLICIT, INCIDENTAL, ENHANCED, AND INSTRUCTED CONDITIONS , 1997, Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

[78]  Axel Cleeremans,et al.  Implicit learning out of the lab: the case of orthographic regularities. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[79]  M. Coltheart.  Lexical access in simple reading tasks , 1978 .

[80]  A. Reber.  Implicit learning of artificial grammars , 1967 .

[81]  Paul W. B. Atkins,et al.  Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches. , 1993 .

[82]  Pierre Perruchet,et al.  Synthetic Grammar Learning : Implicit Rule Abstraction or Explicit Fragmentary Knowledge ? Pierre Perruchet and Chantal Pacteau , 1990 .

[83]  Joel R. Meyer,et al.  Relation between brain activation and lexical performance , 2003, Human brain mapping.

[84]  D. Broadbent,et al.  Interactive tasks and the implicit‐explicit distinction , 1988 .